>>>Stewart's politics is his own bidness unless he decides to make it a part of his explicit persona...let's just sidestep a repeat of the whole Live Earth discussion, again...that's really an excercise in futility...someone can have a strongly attuned bullshit detector who is not libertarian, just as easily as someone who from a libertarian point of view can be unreflectively dogmatic (like re: definitions of private property)...being critical and aware is something that many people actually are, contrary to the popular story that everyone except an elite vanguard are sheep...and being critical and aware does not denote any particular politics/position <grin><<<
I don't disagree with anything you said there.
I would only add that part of what I always liked about the Police is that they didn't quite fit the mold that rock bands are "supposed" to fit...and they didn't seem to care that they didn't, either-- whether it's calling themselves "The Police", playing a song like "Miss Gradenko", wearing their hair short, or generally being three pretty average middle class white guys ("preppy" even!) and proud of it...
There has always been a certain segment of the music world...the most political segment, like say, Paul Weller...who have despised them, undoubtedly in part for those reasons, and the fact that they were hugely successful in the process. They're betrayers! Fifth columnists! (Stewart's father was in the CIA...so who knows...maybe it was all a plot...) Hopefully they've still got a little of that in them. Like I said though, Stewart has been in Hollywood for a while, and he's probably learned to say all the right things. It might be a bit of an exaggeration to say that you have to toe a certain line to get work in movies, but it wouldn't be entirely inaccurate either...